Ivan led Einarr to St. Vasilisha Orphanage. His brother insisted on seeing where his younger sibling lived with his own eyes.
"An orphanage! This is absolutely fantastic!"
Einarr wandered around, constantly bursting into laughter. The orphans screamed and ran away from his menacing appearance.
"They really spared no expense here!"
"Hmm."
"War orphans looking healthier than those noble brats in our palace. My goodness, what is this world coming to!"
Despite his words, Einarr proudly patted Ivan on the back.
"You little bastard, you're better than me."
"Hmm."
Ivan didn't bother to refute what was objectively true.
Seeing this, Einarr burst into laughter and wrapped his arm around Ivan's shoulder.
His terrifyingly well-developed muscles wrapped around Ivan's nape, forcing him to suppress a shudder.
"Now, let's take a look at your home."
Einarr looked around the director's office and nodded.
"A very modest office. So, where do you sleep?"
"Here."
"What...?"
"On that sofa."
"Oh..."
Einarr hesitated as he looked around.
One old sofa. One old reception table.
One wardrobe and one desk. Weapons hanging on the wall, gleaming and well-maintained.
This guy, why is he still living in a war zone?
Einarr narrowed his eyes. Well, eating and sleeping in the director's office was one thing, but...
'He's ready to leave at any moment.'
He was the king of a nation, Droan's greatest field commander, and a man who fought alongside his soldiers on the front lines.
He immediately saw through Ivan's state. This was an office filled with only necessities rather than desires, allowing him to leave without regrets in any situation.
Except for the weapons on the wall, anyone could sit at this desk and there would be no problem. The place had no "color" to it.
The color of a space that comes from personal possessions and individual taste. There was none of that here. A completely colorless space.
A transparent, colorless space with absolutely no sense of belonging.
"Ivan. Sit down."
Einarr gestured with heavy eyes. As soon as he sat on the sofa, huskarls rushed in to set out bottles and glasses before him.
"Let me hear your story first. How did you manage to kill one of the Seven Dragon Lords and return alive?"
Ready to disappear at any moment, in a state where it wouldn't be strange if he vanished right now.
Einarr knew someone else like that.
Maximillian. The Hero of Humanity.
That bastard was exactly like this right before he disappeared.
A god's accidental mistake in creating a race, the essence of thousands or tens of thousands of years of racial evolution, the greatest product created by some fate in the world.
The strongest and greatest single entity among an entire race.
During the war, humans called them the "Seven Dragon Lords."
Beings who attained divine names with mortal bodies. Concepts manifested in the world. Representatives of each race that made up the demon folk.
In human terms, perhaps like a hero? No, that's not right. Even the hero wasn't the strongest individual among humans.
Beings who could represent their entire species alone, literally becoming "racial gods."
Seven such beings, and one who ruled over them. A multi-racial alliance surging under their command. Humans who lost half the world within ten years of the war's outbreak.
That was the cause and history of the last war.
"How on earth did you return alive?"
Einarr asked Ivan, feeling as though he was witnessing a miracle.
He had faced the Seven Dragon Lords before. He was one of the extremely rare individuals in this world who had encountered them and lived to tell the tale.
So he couldn't help but wonder.
Even the Hero Party felt despair when facing the Seven Dragon Lords. They learned fear, pain, and defeat.
It took the entire Hero Party fighting together to barely defeat one of them at a time.
And he faced one with just a few "well-trained" troops, killed it, and returned alive?
"The one you killed was... Aviditas, right? That's what I heard."
"Correct."
"The Lord of Greed? Wasn't he living in the Ipera Sky Fortress? How the hell did you kill that bastard? How did you make it back alive?"
A reasonable question. Einarr tilted his head as he drank the liquor poured by the huskarls, with his feet propped up on the table.
Ivan sat across from him, quietly tilting his head.
Uncomfortable.
Ivan couldn't understand why this man was in this city, why he was having a private conversation with him, or why they were having this particular discussion.
It was just uncomfortable. Especially this conversation that reminded him of those times.
-Lieutenant Colonel, did you see? Wow, I was really amazing, wasn't I? I held off all seven Dragon Lords.
-Ahaha, I feel like I could do it again if asked, what a shame.
-If I could have, I might have saved Sasha, that idiot. It's really a shame, Lieutenant Colonel, really.
-But we won't be lonely. We.
-We've built good connections in both heaven and hell, right?
-Lieutenant Colonel, live a long life. Come as late as possible.
-If you come too soon, I'll rebel against you.
Ivan gritted his teeth at the voices hitting his ears like auditory hallucinations.
That day, Cherenovika's blood still felt hot on the back of his neck. Not only that, he remembered the names of all his subordinates who died then.
156 Annihilation Squad members died to kill just one Dragon Lord.
Since there were five active Dragon Lords at the time, it's fair to say that all 700 or so Annihilation Squad members perished on the same day.
Kill the Seven Dragon Lords. That was the final order the Annihilation Squad faced.
So Ivan didn't want to recall that day.
"Let's talk about something else."
"No. We can't."
Einarr's green eyes were burning like flames.
He was staring at Ivan with fiery eyes, as if piercing through his heart.
"Is it guilt? Or fear? I understand. I can comprehend it. I heard Enrique and Patricia are in this city too, but you didn't tell me. Well... they weren't the ones who 'directly' killed them, so they might not know."
"...What are you trying to say?"
"I'm saying that someone who directly killed a Dragon Lord, someone who was covered in a Dragon Lord's blood, cannot be normal."
Einarr flicked his hand. His glass filled again with viscous distilled liquor.
He emptied the glass into his mouth and swallowed roughly. With a deep sigh, he continued in a languid tone.
"The first time I noticed it was... let's see. When we killed Tumor. When we killed Tumor of the Great Mountain, that bastard, Maximillian acted strange for a while."
Einarr closed his eyes, recalling the distant past.
"He returned to normal after a few days... but even if others didn't notice, I could see it. The anger deeply suppressed beneath those eyes. That guy was originally good-natured, but after that, he became unnaturally kind."
"Was that so."
"Yes. After that, we caught another Dragon Lord, and he insisted despite losing an arm. He absolutely had to be the one to kill it. Strange thing. He was never one to care about honor, yet there he was, demanding that he take the head himself."
At the time, they didn't think much of it.
Those times were harsh for everyone. Even the Hero Party was gradually speaking less and becoming more emotionally unstable.
It had been a long time since they'd seen their families, and they rarely conversed with humans. All they encountered were demons, and both earth and sky threatened their lives.
It was a time when you had to tear the sky apart to see hope.
So the hero's eccentricity was something they could tolerate. That's what they decided to think. Well, what difference did it make whether he cut the head himself or not? What mattered was that they killed a Dragon Lord.
"And then in the Demon King's castle... Hmm. This is something that would be troublesome if others heard. Boys, wait outside."
"Yes, brother!!"
At Einarr's gesture, the huskarls all left the director's office.
Alone in the room, Einarr slowly reached out and filled his own glass.
He pushed the filled glass toward Ivan and flicked his hand while holding the bottle.
"Drink. Your brother is thirsty."
Ivan gripped the glass and raised it. Einarr raised the bottle and clinked it loudly against his glass.
The two men drank simultaneously.
A heavy, bitter liquid burning like a fireball flowed down Ivan's throat.
After a moment of silence, Einarr put down the bottle and spoke.
"Maximillian personally cut off the Demon King's head. At that time, he was in a state where he couldn't move. Even with Patricia's healing, he needed at least a week of rest."
Yet the hero, despite suffering injuries so severe that no one else could have moved a finger, walked over and cut off the Demon King's head.
The blood pouring through his armor was already a lethal amount. Patricia was pouring healing miracles into the hero until she fainted.
Gil Ber fainted while standing, Einarr was gathering the party members to prepare for retreat, and Enrique and Beolgreen were dealing with the forces rushing to the top floor of the Demon King's castle.
In that situation, Maximillian cut off the already dead Demon King's head. Continuously until they retreated. Even when he had already passed out, even in an unconscious state, continuously.
Only Beolgreen and Einarr in the party felt that this was 'strange.'
Beolgreen through intellect, Einarr through instinct. They noticed the hero's 'strangeness' that other party members missed.
"That bastard dared... to bear the curse in our place."
"...Curse."
"Yes, curse. The defilement that pours onto mortals who kill gods. The curse placed on god-slayers who are covered in divine blood."
Intense killing intent was released from Einarr's body.
"How dare he, how dare he bear that sin in my place. Thinking we couldn't handle it. In his self-righteousness, alone...!!"
To Ivan's eyes, it was guilt disguised as anger.
It was the expression of grief and guilt, emotions with no other outlet, manifested solely as anger.
Ivan silently stroked his glass.
"When he first killed one Dragon Lord. That's when he realized it. This was a curse that humans couldn't bear. Then he must have thought."
If someone would inevitably have to receive the same curse later.
Wouldn't it be most efficient for him, already cursed, to receive it?
"That fool. Without even thinking of consulting with the rest of us, he took it all on himself..."
Einarr tilted the bottle and gulped. Only after exhaling a deep breath did his eyes lower.
"Kill one Dragon Lord and your soul is defiled. Then what happened after killing the Demon King? Others found Maximillian's disappearance strange, but not me. He finally couldn't bear it anymore."
Einarr put down the empty bottle and glared at Ivan.
Heavily, as if trying to look into his soul.
"Aviditas embodied the concept of greed. You've lost all desire, Ivan Petrovich. For the world's treasures, for honor and fame, for relationships and love."
Pouring all the assets earned through war into establishing an orphanage, yet sleeping on a sofa himself.
Living in seclusion as if dead, while nobles and high-ranking generals from various departments are still active.
Rejecting all marriage proposals from various socialites of the time and growing old alone.
Einarr quietly regulated his breathing and swallowed his anger.
He swallowed his sadness, his guilt, his grief.
"How are you still alive? For the past four years. What exactly is keeping you in this world?"
"..."
Ivan raised his head at Einarr's words.
"Duty."
Then, he continued heavily.
"Respect, faith, responsibility, hope."
Respect for the late king.
Faith in the ending page.
Responsibility on behalf of all those who died in his place.
Hope that he could return.
And if he were to add one more.
"Survival."
Not seeking a reason for being alive.
The blind devotion to existence itself as the reason.
That was everything to Ivan, no exaggeration.
After finishing those words, Ivan thought for a moment, then took out a small box from his breast pocket.
"And I haven't lost all desire. Einarr."
"Brother."
"Einarr."
"I said brother."
"...Brother Einarr."
"That's right."
Einarr smiled slightly and nodded toward the box.
"Well, what is it? This desire you claim not to have lost. Let me see what it is."
"Don't be surprised."
Ivan slowly opened the box. A shining metal comb, carefully maintained, was carefully lifted in his hand.
He clicked the comb open wide and said quietly:
"This can also be used as a dagger."
"That's fucking awesome, you bastard!!"
Einarr shouted and jumped to his feet.